DVD Review: The Adjustment Bureau

Matt Damon and Emily Blunt star in a sophisticated, elegant thriller of predestination.

There’s an old proverb, certainly hundreds of years old and probably British, that begins with a horseshoe losing a nail and ultimately leading, through a cascade of dire consequences, to the collapse of an entire kingdom. Such small twists of fate – seemingly random yet maddeningly well- and ill-timed, holding the potential for disaster or joy – lie at the intelligent heart of The Adjustment Bureau. Helmed by first-time director George Nolfi (who also adapted the Philip K. Dick short story), the film trusts its audience to reach their own conclusions and rewards their patience with genuine suspense and characterization of an elegant, old-school Hollywood flavor. Until its last few moments, when the script veers into a pat ending, it’s one of the year’s best films.

Matt Damon stars as David Norris, a New York congressman whose hard-partying past (which fortunately does not involve Twitter) has cost him a Senate race in a bitter upset. Moments before his concession speech he meets Elise Sellas (Emily Blunt), a free-spirited woman who’s crashed a party elsewhere in the labyrinthine hotel. The two have an immediate, undeniable romantic chemistry, their flirtation relaxed and smart without seeming forced or purely sexual: more than simply attracted, they’re fascinated by one another. Norris has to make that speech, however, and thanks to Elise’s inspiration he gives one that revitalizes his political fortunes.

But forces are literally conspiring to keep them apart: Norris has been watched since childhood by “adjusters,” men in mid-20th Century clothing who periodically fine-tune reality on behalf of a vaguely defined “Chairman” who lays out intricate plans for everyone on Earth. Norris and Elise must not be together, the group’s leader (John Slattery) explains, because their togetherness violates the plan intended for Norris. (The Chairman, we learn later, wants him to be President.) When Norris intrudes on the adjustment team tweaking the venture capital firm where he works, the team makes him swear to not pursue Elise again. Confused and frightened, he agrees.

The film jumps ahead three years, to when a chance encounter brings the two would-be lovers together again. But the adjustment team is right there to intervene, even as one of their number (Anthony Mackie) decides to work on the couple’s behalf. Norris’ attempt to reach Elise through narrow Manhattan streets, while the adjusters manipulate reality and circumstance around him, makes for an unusual but gripping chase sequence that’s breathlessly staged and handsomely photographed.

Comparisons to last year’s far murkier Inception are unavoidable, but where that film sacrificed plot for spectacle Nolfi’s script and direction keep emphasis on character – particularly Norris’, but also allowing Elise ample screen time to develop into something more than the object of Norris’ obsession. She’s a well-rounded character in her own right, deserving of happiness and even sometimes pitiable: suffering without benefit of knowledge of the adjuster’s machinations, much of her life through the story is lonely and frustrated. (How many of us have wondered, sometime in our life, if vast forces weren’t keeping us alone? Elise becomes our proxy for that dilemma.)

The two leads, as mentioned above, deliver performances rich with maturity and depth. Damon the actor has virtually grown up on camera since his earliest appearances in the 1990s, and here he’s able to convey confidence and vulnerability without coming across as showy, and to his and Nolfi’s credit the screenplay never provides him a showy monologue or expressive scene in which – as we can imagine lesser films might – he gets to rage at the heavens. The film is too smart for that.

Can you imagine if the plan for your life included her?

Blunt, without benefit of Damon’s comparatively greater screen time, matches Damon’s restraint while making her character alluring on several levels. In that initial men’s room scene, her dialogue suggests a free-spirited type similar to the over-used and (and perhaps over-celebrated) pixie dream girl trope. Thankfully Elise the character outgrows that shoebox in seconds; she’s too old for the impish behavior suggested by the scene, for one thing; for another, such contrivance would derail the film’s better aspirations. Blunt’s best moment in the film comes later, when Elise confronts Norris for abandoning her: rather than allow herself to sink into bitchiness or spite, her hurt and anger fuel her reasoning with him.

The adjusters, meanwhile, carry frustrations with their job but keep a brusque professionalism with each other. John Slattery, playing the adjuster Richardson, makes an effective foil for Norris’ determination, at once amused by the humans’ resolve but wary of the consequences of defiance. His impatience and disappointment with Mackie’s rebel angel, communicated with impatient gestures and harried asides, speaks volumes without lapsing into bald exposition. “Three years later and I’m still cleaning up your mess,” Richardson tells him bitterly, as they pass in a hallway. You get the sense the adjusters feel as mystified by the Chairman’s plans as anyone else, but their’s isn’t to question why, no matter how much the job drains them.

In turn this only raises larger issues, but they’re the issues that the movie wants to face. Predestination is an old, old subject in art and culture, and here the film’s split-the-difference explanation of determinism grinding against free will might either intrigue or annoy you, depending on how you felt about such matters in the first place. Thompson (Terence Stamp, imperious as ever), the adjuster’s “hammer” sent in to separate Norris and Elise once and for all, explains the rises and falls of human history as a series of interspersed periods of free will and divine engineering. Agree with him or not, his perspective is both smart and chilling. The film’s submerged theme – that there is a plan, but it’s imperfect, and it changes all the time – is also troubling on any number of levels. The film doesn’t provide any answers, but there’s something to say for a mainstream film of this day and age even asking the questions.

With so much done right and most often done very well, it’s almost inevitable that the film underwhelm a little at the ending. It does, but only mildly and only very narrowly. A resolution that allows for – well, a happy ending, honestly – comes along too tidily and too conveniently to earn its place among the scenes preceding it; listen to the dialogue closely and you may even be reminded of The Wizard of Oz, and realistically we can imagine that wasn’t Dick’s or Nolfi’s intent. Until those last moments, however, The Adjustment Bureau is handsome, near-excellent filmmaking.

- Michael Kabel

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Review: The Adjustment Bureau

Matt Damon and Emily Blunt star in a sophisticated, elegant thriller of predestination.

There’s an old proverb, certainly hundreds of years old and probably British, that begins with a horseshoe losing a nail and ultimately leading, through a cascade of dire consequences, to the collapse of an entire kingdom. Such small twists of fate – seemingly random yet maddeningly well- and ill-timed alike, holding the potential for disaster or joy - lie at the intelligent heart of The Adjustment Bureau. Helmed by first-time director George Nolfi (who also adapted the Philip K. Dick short story), the film trusts its audience to reach their own conclusions and rewards their patience with genuine suspense and characterization of an elegant, old-school Hollywood flavor. Until its few moments, when the script veers into a pat ending, it’s probably the best new release of the year to date.

Matt Damon plays David Norris, a New York congressman whose hard-partying past has cost him a Senate race that, it’s explained to us, most voters felt certain he’d win. Moments before his concession speech he encounters Elise Sellas (Emily Blunt), a free-spirited woman who’s crashed a party elsewhere in the labyrinthine hotel. The two have an immediate, undeniable romantic chemistry, their flirtation relaxed and smart without seeming forced or purely sexual: more than simply attracted, they’re fascinated by one another. Norris has to make that speech, however, and thanks to Elise’s inspiration he gives one that revitalizes his political fortunes.

But forces are literally conspiring to keep them apart: Norris has been watched since childhood by “adjusters,” men in mid-20th Century clothing who periodically fine-tune reality on behalf of a vaguely defined ”Chairman” who lays out intricate plans for everyone on Earth. Norris and Elise must not be together, the group’s leader (John Slattery) explains, because their togetherness violates the plan intended for Norris. (The Chairman, we learn later, wants him to be President.) When Norris intrudes on the adjustment team tweaking the venture capital firm where he works, the team makes him swear to not pursue Elise again. Confused and frightened, he agrees.

The film jumps ahead three years, to when a chance encounter brings the two would-be lovers together again. But the adjustment team is right there to intervene, even as one of their number (Anthony Mackie) decides to work on their behalf. Norris’ attempt to reach Elise through narrow Manhattan streets, while the adjusters manipulate reality and circumstance around him, makes for an unusual but gripping chase sequence that’s breathlessly staged and handsomely photographed.

Comparisons to last year’s far murkier Inception are unavoidable, probably, but where that film sacrificed plot for spectacle Nolfi’s script and direction keep emphasis on character – particularly Norris’, but also allowing Elise ample screen time to develop into something more than the object of Norris’ obsession. She’s a well-rounded character in her own right, deserving of happiness and even sometimes pitiable: suffering without benefit of knowledge of the adjuster’s machinations, much of her life through the story is lonely and frustrated. (How many of us have wondered, sometime in our life, if vast forces weren’t keeping us alone? Elise becomes our proxy for that dilemma.)

The two leads, as mentioned above, deliver spotless performances rich with maturity and depth. Damon the actor has virtually grown up on camera since his earliest appearances in the 1990s, and here he’s able to convey confidence and vulnerability at the same time. His performance isn’t for a moment showy, and to his and Nolfi’s credit the screenplay never provides him a showy monologue or expressive scene in which – as we can imagine lesser films might – he gets to rage at the heavens. In this way, too, the film is too smart for that.

Can you imagine if the plan for your life included her?

Blunt, without benefit of Damon’s comparatively greater screen time, matches Damon’s restraint while making her character alluring on several levels. In that initial men’s room scene, her dialogue suggests a free-spirited type similar to the over-used and (and perhaps over-celebrated) pixie dream girl trope. Thankfully Elise the character outgrows that shoebox in seconds; she’s too old for the impish behavior suggested by the scene, for one thing; for another, such contrivance would derail the film’s better aspirations. Blunt’s best moment in the film comes later, when Elise confronts Norris for abandoning her: rather than allow herself to sink into bitchiness or spite, her hurt and anger fuel her reasoning with him.

The adjusters, meanwhile, carry frustrations with their job but keep a brusque professionalism with each other. John Slattery, playing the adjuster Richardson, makes an effective foil for Norris’ determination, at once amused by the humans’ resolve but wary of the consequences of defiance. His impatience and disappointment with Mackie’s rebel angel, communicated with impatient gestures and harried asides, speaks volumes without lapsing into bald exposition. “Three years later and I’m still cleaning up your mess,” Richardson tells him bitterly, as they pass in a hallway. You get the sense the adjusters feel as mystified by the Chairman’s plans as anyone else, but their’s isn’t to question why, no matter how much the job drains them.

In turn this only raises larger issues, but they’re the issues that the movie wants to face. Predestination is an old, old subject in art and culture, and here the film’s split-the-difference explanation of determinism grinding against free will might either intrigue or annoy you, depending on how you felt about such matters in the first place. Thompson (Terence Stamp, imperious as ever), the adjuster’s “hammer” sent in to separate Norris and Elise once and for all, explains the rises and falls of human history as a series of interspersed periods of free will and divine engineering. Agree with him or not, his perspective is both smart and chilling. The film’s submerged theme – that there is a plan, but it’s imperfect, and it changes all the time – is also troubling on any number of levels. The film doesn’t provide any answers, but  there’s something to say for a mainstream film of this day and age even asking the questions.

With so much done right and most often done very well, it’s almost inevitable that the film underwhelm a little at the ending. It does, but only mildly and only very narrowly. A resolution that allows for – well, a happy ending, honestly – comes along too tidily and too conveniently to earn its place among the scenes preceding it; listen to the dialogue closely and you may even be reminded of The Wizard of Oz, and realistically we can imagine that wasn’t Dick’s or Nolfi’s intent. Until those last moments, however, The Adjustment Bureau is handsomely excellent filmmaking.

- Michael Kabel

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Miscellaneous Debris, December 2010 Edition

Closing the year with our roundup of news and observations that didn’t get a full post.

This year ends with a whimper in entertainment, the way most years do. Like too many of the previous years, we doubt 2010 will go down in the books as a particularly rewarding year for film or television, the occasional bright spots like The Social Network and The Fighter, and Terriers notwithstanding. (We’ll have our review of that second film up next week.) There was plenty to dissent about though, including The American and The Girl Who Played With Fire.

As this year shudders to a conclusion and the new one lurks just around the corner (beginning with the date 1-1-11, no less), here’s the news and other items we didn’t get around to blogging about this month. All opinions are our own, of course.

You gross 7.6 million opening weekend. That's how you know.

1. If 2010 concludes the decade, its last month in a sense ought to serve as a closing bell for the comic actors of the late 1990s. Both Jack Black and Owen Wilson had films that flopped this month – Gulliver’s Travels and How Do You Know, respectively – while Ben Stiller’s Meet The Fockers is making money but not fooling anyone about quality.

Ignoring for a moment that all three became paycheck actors years ago, each needs to start taking greater risks with their film choices again. (a couple of qualifiers: Greenberg was too mannered and too self-conscious by half; we’re not sure Black ever took risks.) By way of contrast, Luke Wilson has been quietly making offbeat work for several years now, even if most of his recent films (Middle Men, Henry Poole Is Here) have been neglected by the general public. We hope his contemporaries follow suit.

Surely they can't be serious.

2. The Library of Congress announced its list of 25 inductees into the National Film Registry this week, including no-surprise cultural heavyweights The Empire Strikes Back and Saturday Night Fever but making room for a few dark horses, too. This year’s list of inductees includes  The Exorcist, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, and Malcolm X. Perhaps the most surprising addition, however, was 1981′s disaster spoof Airplane!

Films included in the registry are preserved for future generations in environmentally controlled vaults. Librarian of Congress James H. Billington selected the movies from a list of 2100 films and short films suggested by the public. The complete list of 2010 inductees can be found here.

Bale in The Fighter

3. Speaking of films and awards, we’ll go ahead and start making our Oscar predictions now: The Social Network for Best Picture and David Fincher for Directing; Christian Bale for Best Supporting Actor in The Fighter, Nathalie Portman for Best Actress in Black Swan.

The spirit of this year’s Oscars will no doubt reflect youth and change, with hosts James Franco and Anne Hathaway presiding over a ceremony that will likely include potential nominees Jesse Eisenberg, Mila Kunis, Amy Adams, and Ryan Gosling, among others. We’ve said before the torch is overdue to be passed – maybe this year’s ceremony will signify as much.

Oswalt's Wikipedia photo

4. Sooner or later, we think Patton Oswalt’s going to get some kind of Oscar of his own. It’s a strange world, and he’s a very smart guy. We came across his eulogy for geek culture in this month’s issue of Wired and want to pass it along. While we can’t agree with his tastes in all things geek, he’s pretty spot on about where fan culture and subcultures as a whole are heading, and (more importantly) where they need to go. As usual, he’s funny and candid too, rewarding geeks who’ll get his arcane cultural references but not making them necessary for his arguments to work.

5. We’re not sure where Kenneth Branagh’s film version of the Marvel comics hero Thor fits into the overall scheme of “all things geek” – like next year’s Green Lantern, the viking godling come to Earth is a perennial top-of-the-second-tier character. The trailer debuted on the Internet and in theaters this month, just slightly exceeding our fickle expectations.

On the plus side, star Chris Hemsworth seems to have natural leading man chops, and the production design looks like goofy fun in an Excalibur kind of way. On the downside, Nathalie Portman in a superhero movie is the answer to a question nobody asked, and the fight scenes seem suspiciously like standard action movie fare. At worst,  the film can still serve as the warmup to The First Avenger: Captain America, which debuts later that summer.

Thor arrives in theaters nationwide May 6.

So money: Lightyear, Woody

6. We’re reminded of a quote from the late, great Tip O’Neil: “A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking about real money.”  Despite the second highest box office gross in history, 2010 will go down as something of a disappointment when compared to initial estimates by industry analysts. Entertainment Weekly‘s Keith Staskiewicz blames the letdown on a summer of disappointing tentpole attractions and an equally weak winter; much of the year’s first quarter, too, was buoyed by the carryover success of Avatar.

Final box office estimates for 2010: 10.55 billion dollars, down slightly from last year’s $10.6 billion. The highest grossing film, by the way, was Toy Story 3 with $415 million in ticket sales.

7. We’ve talked it up it a couple of times already, so we feel a little obligated to mention that Matt Damon’s The Adjustment Bureau is now scheduled for a March 4 release. Based on a short story by Blade Runner author Philip K. Dick and with a supporting cast that includes Emily Blunt, John Slattery and Terence Stamp, the film tells the story of star-crossed lovers engineered to remain apart by a team of reality mechanics, despite their best efforts to come together.

Universal had previously scheduled its release for last September, around the same time as advance promotion for Damon’s ultimately underwhelming Hereafter.  We’re always in the mood for brainy, stylish sci-fi, and the delay is only fueling our expectations.

8. We’ll end the year with the same plea we made last year, to ask everyone to seek and demand better entertainment across the media spectrum – film, television, online, and so on. It seems to us that the general feeling, more and more, is that our culture is on the decline, becoming “schlocky and superficial” (to quote Boston Legal) while focusing increasingly on the regressive and the reductive. But that’s not going to change until we all agree to do something about it.

As a new year’s resolution, swear off the junk of reality television and other “guilty pleasures,” and resolve to see one classic film and read a classic book each month – twelve classic books, twelve classic movies in 2011. We promise you that you’ll feel good about it, and that the old junk will seem so much more meaningless in comparison. If you need a place to start, here’s a list of the American Film Institute’s Greatest 100 Movies.

Thanks for reading. We’ll be back in the new year with more reviews and features each week than we had in 2010. Have a great holiday weekend.

- Michael Kabel

Our Fall and Winter Preview 2010

Looking ahead to seven coming attractions in the coming weeks.

Every year about this time the movie industry starts rolling out their prestige pictures, the films they hope will gain them the acclaim and pursuant bragging rights that come from winning all the awards doled out around the first of the year (and helping them in the race to the Academy Awards, to boot.) The fall and winter seasons tends to cater to a more adult audience than the summer season, as well, with more fare for grown-ups taking their bows in multiplexes as well as the indie cinemas. Even the action films tend to offer more complex plots, with more mature stars.

The following seven films represent the coming attractions that caught our eye the most. There are dozens of more films premiering – and some look better than others, of course – but these are the ones we thought most worth ballyhooing.

Hereafter (opens wide release Oct 22.) – A triptych of stories dealing with death, the afterlife, and the meaning of both: a factory worker (Matt Damon) can reluctantly speak to the dead but has since abandoned the flashy media career that came with it; a television journalist (Cecile DeFrance) and her daughter are caught up in a cataclysmic tsunami; a young boy in London witnesses the death of his twin brother (George McLaren). All three stories converge at the end, as the characters unite.

The film opened in limited release last week, and response from the mainstream press has been uncharacteristically tepid compared to most of Clint Eastwood’s directing efforts.

The trailer reminds us, for no good reason, of last summer’s problematic Inception; we wonder how much this film’s debut played in Universal’s decision to push back The Adjustment Bureau, another reality-warping, Damon-starring melodrama, from September until next March.

Unstoppable (opens nationwide November 12) As an unmanned, half-mile long train loaded with combustible and poisonous materials threatens to destroy the city located in its path, a railroad engineer (Denzel Washington) and conductor (Chris Pine) race to intercept it and dismantle its engine.

The film marks Washington’s sixth collaboration with director Tony Scott; their last effort together, a remake of The Taking of Pelham 123, didn’t exactly set the world on fire in 2009. Nevertheless, Pine is an engaging and promising new talent and the concept is richer this time around, with far more water cooler potential. Too bad the poster looks like a direct-to-DVD jacket cover.

The plot is loosely based on a 2001 true story, though in reality the runaway train achieved speeds of only about 47 miles an hour. Crews slowed the train down to about eleven MPH, at which time a conductor jogged alongside, hopped aboard, and shut down the engines.

The Next Three Days (Opens nationwide November 19) – When his wife (Elizabeth Banks) is falsely imprisoned for murder, a college professor (Russell Crowe) plans her escape with help from a convict (Liam Neeson) who successfully staged his own jailbreak. Determined despite his inexperience, the professor goes through with the break-out even while his mistakes make the city close in around his family. Brian Dennehy, Olivia Wilde, and Daniel Stern co-star.

Directed by Paul Haggis (Crash), the film remakes the 2007 French festival hit Pour Elle. The American version moves the action to Pittsburgh, no doubt taking advantage of the city’s intricate layout and complex infrastructure.



The film seems intriguing for no apparent reason than it’s the kind of big-star attraction we keep wishing Hollywood would start making again (the vampires and super-heroes are getting old.) After years of less-than-satisyfing work, Crowe is overdue to lead something that shows his still-considerable everyman chops. Banks was seemingly in every movie released in 2008 but hasn’t worn out her welcome yet.

Casino Jack (Opens December 1) – Based on the true-life story of lobbyist Jack Abramoff (Kevin Spacey), who was convicted in 2006 for massive fraud, conspiracy, and tax evasion in a far-reaching investigation that also jailed a U.S. Congressman and nine other lobbyists and congressional staffers. A legend among lobbyists and influence peddlers, Abramoff spent millions on hotels, vacations, and other incentives in order to curry political favors on behalf of his clients.

Directed by George Hickenlooper, the film co-stars Barry Pepper, Jon Lovitz and Kelly Preston, though of course the focus is on Spacey in full-tilt megalomaniac mode as the flashy Abramoff. Hickenlooper’s 2001 effort The Man From Elysian Fields was a quiet triumph of intelligence and grace, though expect more bombast given the subject matter and.. well, just by Spacey’s participation, really.

The public gave a resounding “meh” in response to last summer’s similarly smart/caustic Middle Men, so who knows how they’ll embrace this one. And because you can’t make these things up, Abramoff will be released from prison just three days before the film’s release.

The Company Men (Opens nationwide December 10) – a drama taking aim at the Great Recession, this ensemble piece centers around an executive (Ben Affleck) forced to work construction for his brother-in-law after his six-figure salary corporate position is downsized; Tommy Lee Jones and Chris Cooper also appear as men on different rungs of the corporate ladder similarly affected by the new economic realities. 

Television producer John Wells (Southland, ER) directs his own script, which from the trailer below looks earnest possibly to a fault. Given the subject matter, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Some media outlets still list the film’s October 22 release date, even though a recent postponement moved its berth back to December 10. Sadly, the economy likely won’t be any better seven weeks from now, either.

Tron: Legacy (Opens nationwide December 17) – Though not by design a film for grown-ups, it’s pointless not to expect thirtysomething Gen X’ers to check out this long-awaited upgrade to one of the 80′s seminal films. Set in the present day, the son (Garrett Hedlund) of the world’s most brilliant game developer (Jeff Bridges) remains haunted by his father’s disappearance. Traveling to the abandoned Flynn’s Arcade, he enters a virtual world and joins his father on a quest to overthrow CLU 2, its despotic master control program.

Bridges and Bruce Boxleitner both reprise their roles from the 1982 Disney original, with Olivia Wilde and Michael Sheen appearing as new additions to the digital universe. Everything else is familiar to fans of the original but made new again by the intervening three decades of special effects innovation.

CGI maestro Joseph Kosinski makes his debut directing effort, but as with the original the characters and story are probably only half the fun. Props to Bridges and Boxleitner for coming back, too.

True Grit (Opens nationwide December 25) – Speaking of Bridges (we’re doing that a lot lately, it seems), he headlines the Coen Brothers’ remake of the 1969 John Wayne classic about a young girl (Hailee Steinfeld) who enlists an alcoholic marshal (Bridges) to find the outlaw who killed her father (Josh Brolin). Damon plays the Texas Ranger who accompanies them.

Wayne, probably no one’s idea of a great thespian, won the Best Actor statue for his performance in the original. This new version has Oscarbait written all over it, so expect nominations for Bridges (again) and likely for Steinfeld as well:

The Coens have for our money been in something of a slump over the last decade, with more misses (The Ladykillers, Burn After Reading) than bull’s-eyes thanks in part to a troubling mean streak that seems to grow with each successive film. On the other hand, their first effort with Bridges has become something of a cultural phenomenon, and their previous effort with Brolin did win Best Picture.

- Michael Kabel

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Night Flights, July 2010 Edition

Reviews of seven films we watched by staying up too late at night.  

You probably haven't seen this film. You should.

Here come the dog days of summer. With the second half of the season only beginning to arrive this weekend, there’s been a lot of time to catch up on films that either previously escaped our attention or that we finally managed to track down and watch. A couple of them we were lucky to find. Once we started looking for off the beaten path and little-remembered films on the cable movie channels, we quickly came to appreciate how lucky we are that some of them get aired at all. Staying up all night to see them was just the enabling excuse.  

The following seven films are presented, as always, in no particular order of importance. Wherever possible we’ve included trailers or excerpts.  

Black Dynamite (2009) – You’re forgiven if this rowdy, knowing homage to and parody of the blaxploitation genre escaped your notice. Given a microscopic two week theatrical release last year, it’s now a can’t-miss on DVD. When the brother of kung fu master Black Dynamite (Michael Jai White) is killed by the mob, the former CIA operative and Vietnam veteran vows to clean drugs off the streets. Along the way he foils a government plot and confronts his nemesis The Fiendish Mr. Wu on Kung Fu Island, culminating in a White House showdown that’s too crazy to spoil here. Proudly dumb and giddily cheap, it’s the best kind of satire – the kind that loves its source material enough to know how to laugh at it and celebrate it at the same time.    

The following trailer is NSFW, and hilarious:  

  

Zombieland (2009) -  After a vaguely explained contagion turns most of the world into flesh-eating zombies, a band of survivors including a redneck warrior (Woody Harrelson), a nebbishy college student (Jesse Eisenberg), and a pair of con artist sisters (Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin) make the most of their post-apocalyptic existence, including taking over Bill Murray’s house, spending a dream day at an amusement park, and trashing a cheesy souvenir shop.  It is the gory end of the world as they know it, and they feel… fine, at least.

Eisenberg is the main character but Harrelson  is the star, elevating the script’s already manic, cynical edge a step further: it’s a blast to see Mickey Knox kill zombies, and Harrelson knows it, all but cackling through every scene. As for Stone, if she’s not a major star within the next two years we’ll probably never forgive the industry. Except for some minor plot holes the film is nasty, cathartic fun all the way around, and a neat sabotaging of the too-popular zombie trend.  

  

Adventureland (2009) – The biggest problem with Adventureland is trying not to think of it as Zombieland but without the zombies (but with Ryan Reynolds and Kristen Stewart). Like that other film, this one stars Eisenberg as a sensitive soul haltingly  falling in love with a girl out of his depth (Stewart) with an amusement park for the backdrop.  

Except that’s about where the similarities end. Writer-director Greg Mottola’s follow-up to Superbad is smarter and more melancholy than that exercise in snark, with better performances from the cast and a more considered worldview. In part this is helped by the bittersweet nostalgia for its 1987 setting, even if like Steven Soderbergh’s recent The Informant! that setting isn’t ever completely realized. Eisenberg’s performance is perhaps too similar, but Reynolds and Stewart both stretch themselves somewhat in their weary turns; Bill Heder and Kristen Wiig emit their usual low-key charm as the park’s managers.  

  

Nothing about this poster does the movie any justice.

Better Off Dead (1985) – A film Gen X’ers probably ought to revisit at least once every couple of years, Savage Steve Holland’s surreal, brazen spoof of teenage angst and self-loathing has actually aged a lot better than some of John Hughes’ work from the same period. That Holland accomplishes this with demented cartoon vignettes, musical numbers featuring claymation hamburgers and copious drug humor only makes the film that much funnier.  

If you don’t already know the plot: Morose teenager Lane Meyer (John Cusack) pines for the girl who dumped him (Amanda Wyss) while engaging in a tentative romance with a French foreign exchange student (Diane Franklin) and preparing to ski race their high school’s uber jock bully (Aaron Dozier). But really, that’s only the tip of the iceberg for Meyer and his weird family, as Holland’s script goes ten funny directions at once. Probably required viewing for anyone between the ages of thirty five and forty, it’s a bona fide cult favorite.  

  

Slattery’s Hurricane (1949) – Meant partly as a comeback vehicle for Veronica Lake (that didn’t happen) and based on a story by Herman Wouk (The Winds of War), this undercooked melodrama tells the story of a WWII fighter pilot (Richard Widmark) recounting his life’s mistakes while flying into the eye of a hurricane off the coast of Miami, mistakes that include any number of indiscretions including adultery and drug smuggling. Director Andre De Toth (Crime Wave) handles the potentially confusing structure easily, and Widmark is excellent as always.  

Still, the film never really amounts to much, lacking suspense as much as depth of characterization. The drug smuggling elements, which all but sit up and bark for attention, get particularly short shrift. Finally, fans of the period will likely enjoy the balmy cinematography that handsomely shows Florida just before its takeover by the tourism industry.  

  

Call Northside 777 (1948) – Based on actual events, a jaded Chicago newspaper reporter (James Stewart) writes a puff piece about a charwoman’s eleven-year struggle to free her son (Richard Conte) from prison, following his conviction for murdering a police officer. The public goes wild for the story, encouraging the paper’s editor (Lee J. Cobb, who may have been born chewing the end of a cigar) to assign the reporter to dig deeper into the case. The son maintains his innocence, which in time the reporter first comes to believe and then champions to the state pardon board.  

Though not entirely a film noir (as its inclusion in Fox’s Film Noir DVD library suggests), under Henry Hathaway’s (Kiss of Death) direction the  film makes for completely arresting viewing until its last few minutes, with Stewart in particular but Cobb and Conte (who would face off, one year later, in the sublime Thieves Highway) all giving rock solid performances. The conclusion, however, almost sinks everything, thanks to a fringe worth of dangling plot threads and a voice-over apologia to the Establishment.  

 

Shadow of a Doubt (1948) – Hitchcock’s unique perspective is a taste we’ve never acquired. So this film, sometimes considered his best, nevertheless left us somewhat cold, despite its unmistakable power and depth. A sociopathic killer of rich widows returns, one step ahead of two dogged cops, to the suburban California home of his sister (Patricia Collinge) and niece (Teresa Wright), and their ostensibly perfect family.  At first adoring and devoted, in time - and thanks to a very proper wooing by one of the cops (Macdonald Carey) – the niece comes to resist and finally oppose her uncle’s growing malice, risking her life as a consequence. 

For as good as Cotten and Wright are – and they’re virtually flawless – the script drags, due in part to an overstuffed cast (the two younger children are largely superfluous) and an at times mawkish depiction of middle class American life. An explanation for the elder Charlie’s profound evil, given as a sweet reminiscence, seems half-hearted and a little unsophisticated. Nevertheless, the menace that lingers around the corners of every scene is never less than palpable, and Cotten’s control of his performance is masterful, as the scene below demonstrates. 

 

With the exception of Slattery’s Hurricane, all of the above films are available on DVD. We’ll be back next week. 

- Michael Kabel

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Our (Rest Of The) Summer Movie Guide

Quick previews of nine films premiering in July, August, and September.

How’s your summer going? Enjoying the heat wave? The first official day of summer was just a couple of weeks ago, June 21, though of course it felt like that time of year, both in the climate and in our culture, for weeks before that. The summer movie season continues to go through its ups and downs, with slam dunk hits like The Twilight Saga: Eclipse and Toy Story 3 raking in cash hand over fist, with more predictably lucrative fare like Grown Ups and The Last Airbender also making bank.  

We still believe it’s been a paltry summer for film, with not even a surprise like last year’s Moon to break up the doldrums. Still, there’s hope on the horizon. The following films all come out in the next few weeks, some in limited but most with wide release schedules planned. We’ve tried to include a range of tastes.

Salt - (July 23) When CIA covert operative Evelyn Salt (Angelina Jolie) is accused by a Soviet defector of plotting to kill the president, she goes on the run to try and clear her good name and get to the truth. Directed by Philip Noyce (The Quiet American) from a script by Kurt Wimmer (Street Kings) and Brian Helgeland (L.A. Confidential).  Our take: This is the third time in five years Jolie has played a spy/assassin, and we kind of think she could slink her way through a part like this in her sleep. Also on familiar ground are the always-welcome Liev Shreiber as Salt’s colleague and the ubiquitous Chiwetel Ejiofor as a fellow agent. We’re lukewarm at best about this one: for all our complaints about wanting more films for grown-ups, this seems like an auto-pilot effort by all involved.

Get Low (Limited July 30) – A notorious mountain man (Robert Duvall) plans to attend his own funeral with the help of a wily funeral director. Old secrets and grudges come to light as the event turns into a local sensation. Our take: High hopes for this one, as we suspect it could be the oddball surprise of the year given the talent both veteran and emerging involved. We’re anxious for more Murray after cracking up at his beyond-meta cameo in last year’s Zombieland, and Duvall all but owns the copyright on these kind of grizzled roles. Academy Award-winning short film director Aaron Schneider (Two Soldiers) makes his feature debut, with a script co-written by C. Gaby Mitchell (Fallen Angels) and Chris Provenzano (Mad Men) from a story by newcomer Scott Seeke. Read our full preview here.

Middle Men (August 6) Set in the far-flung past of 1995 (We were in college!), the based on a true story reveals  how an otherwise upstanding businessman (Luke Wilson) started the first online billing company to deal exclusively with the adult entertainment industry. Along the way he gets involved with porn starlets, Russian gangsters, federal agents, and any variety of con artists. Our take: We are shocked to learn that pornography is available on the Internet. Seriously, with a cast full of underseen stars – including  James Caan, Kevin Pollak, and the mighty Robert Forster – and an offbeat subject, there’s no end to the Boogie Nights-like potential of director George Gallo’s (Midnight Run) latest effort. Wilson is a natural for roles such as this, and anything to get him off those embarrassing cell phone ads is all right by us. The following trailer is redband, meaning it’s NSFW.

Eat, Pray, Love (August 13) – Based on the gargantuan best-selling memoir by Elizabeth Gilbert, the story centers on a newly divorced woman (Julia Roberts) who embarks on a journey around the world to find happiness and contentment. Our Take: We imagine August multiplexes including the twi-hards viewing Eclipse for the third time while their moms check out this sort-of comeback for Roberts one theatre over. Glee mastermind Ryan Murphy is likely exactly the right choice to adapt the material, while the supporting cast including Javier Bardem, James Franco and Billy Crudup means plenty of eye candy for its target demographic.

The Expendables (August 13) – A team of mercenaries is sent to a South America country on a mission to kill its ruthless dictator, even as other forces including a traitor in their midst conspire against them. Our take: Overkill is the name of the game for Sly Stallone’s latest trifecta effort, both in the plot and special effects and also in the tough-guy roundup casting. A good thing, too: pretty much everyone involved could use a career tune-up, and a group effort like this makes good sense. Too, it’s irresistable for anybody that grew up watching action movies on cable. One question, though: Was Chuck Norris busy?

The American (September 1) - A professional hitman and weapons maker (George Clooney) flees to the remote mountains of Italy before awaiting his next, final assignment. While holed up in a tiny village he befriends a priest and romances a local girl, either of whom might offer salvation. Our take: The flip side to The Expendables in so many ways, Anton Corbijn’s second feature effort looks to be a more deliberate and cerebral take on some familiar genre tropes. Clooney has our attention as usual, though much like Jolie it wouldn’t hurt him to lay off the spy and smooth criminal parts for a little while. Read our full preview here.

The Adjustment Bureau (September 17) – A rising politician (Matt Damon) begins a fledgling but powerful romance with a ballerina (Emily Blunt), even while shadowy and mysterious forces rearrange reality so as to keep them apart. Loosely based on a short story by Philip K. Dick, adapted and directed by George Nolfi (The Bourne Ultimatum.), and co-starring Anthony Mackie, John Slattery, Terrence Stamp, Daniel Dae Kim and Shohreh Aghdashloo. Our take: Damon has as much claim to the title  ”America’s Leading Man” as anybody else right now, Blunt is a rising star worth watching, and brainy, romantic science fiction is always a welcome sight. Nevertheless, if Inception disappoints this film could likewise fail to connect with audiences.

The Town (September 17) – The leader of a gang of thieves (Ben Affleck) struggles with feelings of responsibility and attraction for a bank manager (Rebecca Hall) traumatized by one of his heists. Meanwhile an FBI agent (Jon Hamm) pursues her as well, all the while closing in on the thieves. Our take: Has Affleck made a modern-day, grittier Tequila Sunrise? Damon’s former partner returns to their hometown of Boston for this character drama that opens the same day and also features a Mad Men star in a prominent role. Affleck’s earlier writing-directing effort Gone Baby Gone was a pleasant surprise, but for no good reason we’re less enthused about him directing himself. Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker) also co-stars as Affleck’s henchman.

Buried (September 24) –  A civilian truck driver working in Iraq (Ryan Reynolds) is taken hostage by terrorists and buried alive with only a knife, a cell phone, and a lighter. Initially suffering from amnesia, he begins to piece together his fragmented memories as his day’s worth of air slowly runs out. Our take: This effort by Spanish director Rodrigo Cortes seems an unusual choice for Reynolds, who up until now (and the upcoming Green Lantern) has stayed largely away from heavier concepts. There’s a Hitchcockian feel even to just the basic story pitch, and Cortes has reportedly followed that muse towards including plenty of innovative camera angles and perspectives to help tighten the tension. If audiences are willing to buy the former Van Wilder in such grim surroundings the film could be a surprise hit.

- Michael Kabel

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Miscellaneous Debris, April 2010 Edition

Commentary and analysis of interesting stuff that didn’t get a full post.  

April’s over, and the summer movie season is chomping at the box office bit. There’s not much going on in movies right now, but like most Aprils that dearth of films – leftovers, misfires and films little-loved by their studios – pretty much represent the lull before the storm. (An exception being The Losers, a film we liked more than we thought we would.) The sequel to Iron Man, which most fans of the original have been looking forward to since its closing credits, opens next weekend; meanwhile the heavily-hyped remake of A Nightmare On Elm Street finally opens tomorrow. In the coming weeks – May alone – we’ll see the premieres of Robin Hood, Sex and The City 2, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, and Shrek Forever After. June promises a similar metric ton of movies with budgets in the eight- and nine-digit range.  

In the meantime, here’s our favorite news items and topics we thought were worthy of discussion and/or coverage, even if we never got around to blogging about them all on their own. They’re in no particular order of importance.  

1. A couple of years or so ago we called Ang Lee’s Ride With the Devil to task for its choppy narrative structure and uneven performances. A just-released Criterion Edition premieres the director’s cut of Lee’s (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, The Ice Storm) Civil War saga, along with a new screen transfer and some pretty straightforward extra features. Though often well-staged and intelligent, the barely released 1999 theatrical version promised more than it ultimately delivered, especially in the way of performance: many of the supporting characters, including roles played by Skeet Ulrich and the suburb Jeffrey Wright, got short shrift despite hints of richer work left on the cutting room floor. Hopefully the ten restored minutes smooth out these problems, letting the film it could have been emerge. It’s available in both DVD and Blu-Ray formats, in keeping with Criterion’s aggressive new high-def release strategy.  

Wow: Blunt

2. There’s no poster image or teaser trailer available yet, but we’re still intrigued as all Hell by the upcoming The Adjustment Bureau, starring Matt Damon and Emily Blunt as potential lovers kept apart by mysterious and possibly sinister forces. Damon plays a firebrand congressman fascinated by a beautiful ballerina (Blunt), despite strange circumstances that continuously work to keep them separated. Writer-director George Nolfi (The Bourne Ultimatum) loosely based the script on the Philip K. Dick short story “The Adjustment Team,” in which reality is carefully managed by unseen but powerful orchestrators. The film also stars Anthony Mackie, John Slattery, Terrence Stamp, Daniel Dae Kim and Shohreh Aghdashloo. It’s currently slated for a late September release.  

The film probably won't contain this many characters. (Damn.)

3. In other upcoming movie news, though some sites – including imdb.com – are reporting it as a done deal, Joss Whedon is still not confirmed to direct the upcoming The Avengers. While on press junkets for his own Iron Man 2, executive producer Jon Favreau has told audiences there’s no deal “in stone” for Whedon to handle Marvel’s team of superheroes, which include Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, and The Hulk.  

To throw in our two cents, without ambiguity: Whedon is the wrong choice for The Avengers. Its very concept suggests a scale and scope that do not play to the writer-director’s strengths, and to try and shoehorn the two together wouldn’t benefit either. To be less charitable, we don’t think Whedon’s recent efforts are on a par with his earlier work: 2005′s Serenity was a muddled and solipsistic bit of nastiness, while Dollhouse was a mixed success at best. We’d much rather see him attempt a Marvel franchise closer to his own style, such as Elektra (we’re not forgetting about the Jennifer Garner trainwreck) or possibly Firestar.  

4. Just about matching the retro magnificence of last year’s Watchmen viral videos, the following spot for the Lots-O’-Huggin Bear from Toy Story 3 perfectly replicates children’s commercials from the decade that was pretty much a golden age of toys. Just watching it once got us thinking of similar products from the era, including Teddy Ruxpin and the weird, weird My Buddy doll for boys. The video below perfectly captures the fashions and 10K graphics of the era, while the clogged tapehead static at the bottom of the image is a stroke of authentic genius:  

 

Let's do the time warp again.

5. The May sweeps period begin today, so if you’re hoping your own favorite low-rated television program gets renewed for another season this is the time to watch or to write its network. For weeks now we’ve been following the slow ratings erosion of ABC’s once and presumed hits Flash Forward and V on great sites like tvbythenumbers.com as a kind of loose experiment, tracking the series’ episode quality from week to week and comparing it against the posted ratings the next day. 

Of the two shows, though both are borderline we give V the better chance of renewal. The central cast is smaller (and presumably cheaper), the storylines pick up steam with each passing week, and we suspect its long-range dramatic possibilities are greater (Flash Forward is already flailing somewhat in this regard; the conspiracy behind the time-jumping blackouts remain frustratingly vague in motivation.) On the other hand Flash Forward is a solid hit overseas, especially in Europe, and it’s apparently something of a bargain to produce, as well. The network will announce its fall season May 18. 

6. Sometimes ignoring the ratings is a good thing. Despite its under-performance this spring, TNT has renewed Southland for a third season to begin airing in 2011. The “second” season aired by the network consisted of episodes that original network NBC had ordered but not broadcast, and featured a streamlined structure that focused on self-contained stories with greater emphasis on individual characters. TNT would be wise to allow show creator Ann Biderman and staff to continue that momentum. Southland has the potential to become as  good as show as ER or Biderman’s previous NYPD Blue, but like countless other ensemble cast shows that rose to greatness it needs time and breathing room to develop. 

7. Finally, Serena Bramble’s “valentine” to film noir has been all over the online world for a while now, but we’re so amazed by it we want to include it on our site as a way of saying thank you. Presenting some of the genre’s finest work meticulously and often brilliantly set to Massive Attack’s aural bombing raid “Angel,” the montage is a six-miuntes and change crash course in what makes noir so haunting, and why its fans hold it in such romantic regard. If you’re a noir fan already, the video can act like a brochure to explain its smoky charms to the uninitiated. 

 

We’ll be back next week. Thanks for reading. 

- Michael Kabel

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Miscellaneous Debris, March 2010 Edition

This has become our most popular feature. Go figure.   

By the time you read this, March 2010 will likely have gone out like a lamb, with April and the full arrival of  spring coming just after it. Not an awful lot happened by way of movies and film in the last month, at least by way of new releases. A couple of films we expected to do better performed poorly at the box office, while others offered mild surprises. The coming months at least promise plenty of popcorn fare, including The Losers, the eagerly awaited Iron Man 2 and, this coming week, the less-eagerly awaited Clash of the Titans reboot.  

The following is just a roundup of news about television and film stuff we didn’t get around to giving the blogging attention the stories probably deserved. There in no particular order, and they’re just our opinions. They may differ from your opinions. That’s okay.   

1. March was noticeable for a couple of releases that we think fell short of  our vague, informal box office expectations. We thought Green Zone would have excited the public more, though Repo Men, which looked to address health care the same way that Soylent Green addressed overpopulation, got the box office cold shoulder we were afraid it might. Green Zone seems a victim of the American movie audience’s continuing aversion to films about Iraq, while Repo Men was simultaneously under- and mis-promoted. Green Zone may also have been perceived, to quote a friend of ours, as The Bourne Redundancy.  

We'd rather stay home.

2. For a while now we’ve had an idle theory that there exists an inverse proportion between the quality of a high-budget, high-concept movie and the degree of saturation which its marketing receives. If this theory is true, we already suspect Date Night may prove one of the worst movies of the year. The omnipresent, profoundly unfunny ads explaining the film’s premise were all over the dial this month, broadcast and cable alike, making us suspect that 20th Century Fox has little faith in its appeal spreading by word of mouth. For our part, we’re weary of stars Steve Carell’s and Tina Fey’s bland, self-congratulatory schticks, and can’t imagine paying to get what we can see, for free, every Thursday night.  

3. Which is not say NBC’s Thursday night lineup is completely without laughs. Over the course of its first season, Community has quickly bloomed into one of the smartest and most daring shows on network TV. Critics fault its humor for being too reliant on cultural references and its own quirkiness; we see those issues as growing pains in a show with the potential to become a classic ensemble comedy along the lines of New Radio or even Cheers. NBC finally renewed it for a second season, several weeks after re-upping the far drearier Parks and Recreation.  

4. FX’s new Justified has garnered rave reviews in just its first couple of episodes, praise with which we’re hard-pressed to disagree. Adapted from an Elmore Leonard short story, the almost flawless pilot established U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens’ (Timothy Olyphant, Deadwood) return to Harlan, Kentucky as punishment for an act that may or may not have been simple vengeance. Fans of Leonard’s complicated characters and wry black humor won’t want to miss the show; neither will fans of old-fashioned, uncomplicated TV-hero drama. It’s great fun, and like Community has the potential to only get better.  

5. In last month’s Miscellaneous Debris we talked about the land war in Asia that was the casting process for The First Avenger: Captain America. Late this month it was announced that familiar comic book movie presence Chris Evans (The Fantastic Four) had finally won the role. An informal sampling of friends and associates (we asked around our local comic book shop) revealed the general mood surrounding the announcement amounted to vague relief. Nothing against Mr. Evans, who’s dependable if not exactly thrilling as an actor, but such long-awaited news ought to elicit more from its target audience than a collective “well, it could’ve been worse.”  

To this day, we're not sure who killed Laura Palmer.

6.  Here’s something to make Gen-X’ers feel their age: Twin Peaks turns twenty years old next week.  As argued in this panegyric from the British Observer website, the 30-episode surreal crime drama subtly revolutionized television drama, moving it away from the superficial episodics of the 80s towards the meatier, more literate fare that’s become the modern bastion of cable television from The Sopranos on down. Some of us were fans back in the day, and some of us still appreciate the never-ending reruns on the Chiller cable network. Nevertheless, the occasional campiness of the plots and acting are starting to show their age, and the early episodes are markedly more cohesive than the show’s troubled second season.  

7. The industry isn’t promoting their release as well as they could, but several studios are quietly issuing some classic and near-classic fare to Blu-Ray at bargain basement rates. We’ve already found the 80s vampire cult favorite Near Dark and the Steve McQueen crime classic The Getaway for less than ten bucks each at the local big box retailers, with similar prices offered on several more films. Though the cumulative Blu-Ray library still has a long way to go before rivaling DVD in depth or quality, putting out such special-interest films at collector’s prices is a huge step in the right direction.  

Here’s the trailer for The Getaway, not so much a preview as a seemingly random assortment of moments from the film:  

  

If you’ve scored your own cheap Blu-Ray find, tell us about it in the comments section below.  

8. Finally, an open plea to our readers: longtime DVD collectors will likely remember the heady days of the early 00′s, when the format’s swift replacing of the VHS medium caused a deluge of titles to appear on retail shelves and in the catalogues of online boutiques alike. Now, many lesser known titles that were given releases back then are going out of print and/or commanding exorbitant prices on eBay and throughout Amazon.com’s gallery of affiliate merchants. If you know of a reputable, dependable e-commerce DVD retailer, please let us know. Particularly, right now we’re looking for Fat City and The Duellists; on a larger level, we’re trying to find a dependable e-commerce merchant with a broad, deep back catalogue. Thanks.  

We’ll be back next week with more reviews. Thanks for reading.  

- Michael Kabel

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We Like Them, We Really Like Them

Our hopes and predictions for the 2010 Academy Awards.

The smashed box office records of Avatar notwithstanding, 2009 isn’t likely to go down in anybody’s books as a year to remember. The movie industry itself finds itself in a weird period, with theatre attendance slightly up while DVD sales take a sharp downward turn. The implied message is that people were more willing to watch their choice of movie than they were to keep it. Is that a comment on the quality of current films versus years previous, or a reflection of public expectations regarding the films themselves? Maybe.

The Academy Awards, the once and still-ostensible benchmark of film excellence, finds itself at odds with itself this year as well. Years of criticism for elitism and popular irrelevance finally went answered in 2009, as the Academy capitulated by opening the Best Picture category up to ten nominees. And some of the films on that ballot, frankly, have little business being there.  The following are our predictions, observations, and ideas about the winners and nominees in some of the larger categories. We admit that we are usually aggressively, epically wrong in our predictions.

Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published: Up In The Air; An Education; Precious: Based On The Novel Push by Sapphire; District 9; In The Loop. Our choice: Up In The Air What we think will win: Up In The Air. Everybody loved Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner’s translation of Walter Kirn’s novel, but it’s essentially a prestige picture at heart, and the Academy’s trying to go cold turkey on awarding such films the Best Picture statue. Saluting the script may offer a means of splitting the difference between snubbing it and giving it the big award.

Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen: The Hurt Locker; Inglorious Basterds; The Messenger; Up; A Serious Man. Our choice: The Hurt Locker What we think will win: The Hurt Locker. While Mark Boal’s script has drawn criticism from military personnel for its depiction of the war in Iraq, its recent win at the Writer’s Guild of America awards (along with Up In The Air, which won in its category) helps its chances of being the ceremony’s big winner, especially if – like Up In the Air again – it loses in the Best Picture category.

Best Achievement in Cinematography: Mauro Fiore, Avatar; Christian Berger, The White Ribbon; Bruno Delbonnel, Harry Potter and Half-Blood Prince; Barry Ackroyd, The Hurt Locker; Robert Richardson, Inglorious Basterds. Our choice: Christian Berger Who we think will win: Mauro Fiore. Berger’s gorgeous black and white color palette does a lot of the heavy lifting in selling the disquiet of Michael Haneke’s latest meditation on violence. Nevertheless, we think this is the year of Avatar, including not least of which for recognition of its formidable visual achievements.

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role: Penelope Cruz for Nine; Anna Kendrick for Up In The Air; Vera Farmiga for Up In The Air; Mo’Nique for Precious: Based On The Novel Push by Sapphire; Maggie Gyllenhaal for Crazy Heart. Our choice: Vera Farmiga Who we think will win: Anna Kendrick. That’s damning praise, since we suspect a win could hurt Kendrick’s career in much the same way that the later efforts of previous upstart winners Anna Paquin, Mira Sorvino, and Jennifer Hudson all seemed manacled by their victories. It would be a shame if that happened to Kendrick, who showed real potential as George Clooney’s Gen-Y sidekick and antagonist. And we’re not sure why Farmiga isn’t in the Best Actress category.

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role: Matt Damon for Invictus; Christopher Waltz for Inglorious Basterds; Stanley Tucci for The Lovely Bones; Christopher Plummer for The Last Station; Woody Harrelson for The Messenger. Our choice: Stanley Tucci Who we think will win: Christopher Waltz. We’ve been fans of Tucci’s for years, at least since Big Night back in 1996. It’s past time he gets some official recognition (and directs another film, while we’re on the subject.) The many flaws of Basterds notwithstanding, Waltz’s performance as Nazi ”Jew hunter” Hans Landa has met with virtually unanimous critical praise, and there’s no reason that won’t translate into an Academy victory.

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role: Sandra Bullock for The Blind Side; Helen Mirren for The Last Station; Carey Mulligan for An Education; Gabourey Sidibe for Precious: Based On The Novel Push by Sapphire; Meryl Streep for Julie & Julia. Our choice: Sidibe Who we think will win: Streep. Of all the categories, this one seems the widest open; still, we’d rate Bullock’s and Mulligan’s chances as the most remote. And we maintain our suspicion that Streep’s name is pre-programmed into the Academy’s ballot template. They fill in the name of her movie for any given year.

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role: Jeff Bridges for Crazy Heart; George Clooney for Up In The Air; Colin Firth for A Single Man; Morgan Freeman for Invictus; Jeremy Renner for The Hurt Locker. Our choice: Bridges Who we think will win: Bridges, as his Golden Globes win indicates. This is the great actor’s fifth nomination, having previously lost Best Supporting Actor to Ben Johnson, Robert DeNiro and Benicio Del Toro and the Best Actor statue to F. Murray Abraham. Renner’s a long shot, but shouldn’t be counted completely out, either.

Best Achievement in Directing: Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker; James Cameron for Avatar; Lee Daniels for Precious: Based On The Novel Push by Sapphire; Jason Reitman for Up In The Air; Quentin Tarantino for Inglorious Basterds. Our choice: Reitman Who we think will win: Bigelow. It’s a minutiae of Academy trivia, but is this the first time a divorced couple has gone head to head in a category? Cameron could likely lose to ex-wife Bigelow if Academy voters split the two big awards between their respective films. And vice versa. Still and all, Reitman’s film adroitly captured the zeitgeist on a relatively small budget – no mean feat.

Best Motion Picture of the Year: Avatar; The Bind Side; District 9; An Education; The Hurt Locker; Inglorious Basterds; Precious: Based On The Novel Push by Sapphire; A Serious Man; Up; Up In The Air. Our choice: Up In the Air Who we think will win:  Avatar. Our comments listed just above about Up In The Air‘s achievements notwithstanding, the Academy loves a winner, and it loves James Cameron. Avatar has both, and it’s the populist choice besides. Of the rest of the nominees, we’re unsure what the Academy saw in District 9 and Pixar’s disappointing Up to merit their inclusion in competition.

Our congratulations to the winners and our condolences to those who don’t get the statue. We’ll be back next week.

- Michael Kabel

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DVD Review: The Informant!

Matt Damon redeems Steven Soderbergh’s “tattle-tale,” available next week on DVD and Blu-Ray.

Director Steven Soderbergh has spent a good chunk of his career unabashedly paying homage to the films of the 1960s and 70s, whether remaking them outright (Solaris) or channeling their peculiar, very specific rhythms and textures (The Limey, Out of Sight). With The Informant!, he’s supplied with true-life source material that fits approximately alongside such period semi-classics as Serpico and, though it didn’t arrive until 1983, Silkwood. While the overall effort is mercifully free of the self-importance and dogging pace that plagues typical whistle-blower dramas, it doesn’t quite come together as well as it should thanks to an erratic tone and frequent lack of clarity in explaining its myriad details. But it has Matt Damon, who takes another step towards succeeding Tom Hanks as the Great American Movie Star by giving his strongest and most surprising performance in years.

Damon stars as Mark Whitacre, a PhD biochemist recruited into the management division of agricultural giant Archer Daniels Midland. The company produces all kinds of foods as well as the chemical and natural ingredients that go into making them, including the amino additive Lysine. Whitacre, a self-described “technical guy,” has a hard time fitting into the company’s help-yourself management culture, so he’s taken aback upon discovering ADM conspires with its global competitors in an ongoing price-fixing conspiracy. “The average American is a victim of corporate crime by the time he’s finished breakfast,” he complains.

The corn identity: Damon

Whitacre contacts the FBI under the pretense of an extortion attempt launched by one of their Japanese collaborators. Awkwardly befriending FBI agent Brian Shepard (Scott Bakula) as he investigates the phony scheme, Whitacre reveals the true skullduggery within the company. Eventually, he wears a surveillance wire for more than two years as Shepard and his colleague Bob Herndon (Joel McHale) collect evidence against ADM and the other corporations.

But Whitacre is jumpy under the best of circumstances, prone to weird delusions of grandeur as well as struggles with paranoia. He buys too many cars and obsesses about his frequent flier miles, and plans elaborate or fantastic get-rich-quick schemes. Part of his angst, the script by Scott Z. Burns (The Bourne Ultimatum) explains, comes from the strain of maintaining his duplicity, a toll with which even trained federal operatives have trouble coping. But more problems surface as the investigation turns into a sting against ADM, and years of details come to light in the slugfest between prosecutors and ADM attorneys. Chief among them: Whitacre embezzled millions from the company, a fact that jeopardizes Shepard and Herndon’s hard work. Later, a diagnosis of bipolar disorder meant to bolster Whitacre’s legal defense spins their relationship into malicious new territory.

Leave it to Soderbergh to make the federal government seem vulnerable, even needy. Bakula and McHale play their lawman characters not as crusaders but as middle-management types not far removed from Whitacre’s own employees, right down to the off-the-rack suits and low-maintenance hairstyles. The case could make the agents’ careers, and they know it, and that awareness infuses every decision they make and sets the tone for every meeting with their superiors. As Whitacre comes unglued in the film’s third act Shepard emerges as the most visible victim of his machinations and also, strangely, possibly the one with the most to lose.

Understanding exactly what happens following the government’s sting against ADM requires the closest attention possible, as the narrative thread becomes submerged in a long and repetitive series of scenes displaying meetings, conferences, and confrontations between the characters. There’s a sense of consequence, in that the actors are all believable and modern audiences are anyway bitterly aware of what a federal investigation entails. But the many scenes blur together, with little sense of meaning or connection with one another, until the total result feels less than the sum of its parts. Besides jail sentences, you’re not sure what’s at stake.

In a way, complete comprehension of every detail isn’t crucial. Most audiences have seen enough of these kinds of films (not least of which Soderbergh’s own Erin Brokovich) to understand the meetings scenes are just way stations on the trip to the big courtroom resolution finale, followed by the inevitable post-scripts. Still, there ought to be more sense of context, and importance given to the scenes for as much as Soderbergh obviously spends a great amount of time correctly representing their details. Talented performers like Tony Hale, Patton Oswalt and Clancy Brown appear on camera but find no use for their considerable presences except than to fill positions extras could probably handle just as well. Casting 60s-era satirists Tom and Dick Smothers as, respectively, ADM’s patriarch and a federal judge is an interesting, if possibly gratuitous, decision.

Through it all Damon manages to give his character an innate likeability that rests partly on pity: Whitacre simply cannot get out of his own way long enough to give a straight answer, no matter how important the question. Even at the end, as he sits in prison begging on camera for a presidential pardon (for helping to police big business – and from George W. Bush, no less) you can’t help but feel sorry for him despite his many mistakes and egregious arrogance. Had Soderbergh and/or Burns framed the story (based on Kurt Eichenwald’s book) as a character piece, the muddied details might seem less important to understanding. But in attempting to make a film that’s half-character study, half-social crusade, both narratives feel slighted.

A coupe of parting gripes: it’s puzzling that Soderbergh composes the film full of dreary earth tones and heavy fabrics and brass, suggesting the aesthetic of the early 1980s. Yet the film is set firmly in the 1990s and the current decade, when most such designs had long since gone out of style, even in relatively rural places like the film’s Illinois setting. The Sixties-groovy title graphics also serve no purpose either, though they do distract.

- Michael Kabel

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(Note: An earlier version of this review was originally published for the film’s theatrical release.)